There were words she wouldn’t say, though who would believe that, because she would say anything. But some words were forbidden. Because they were magic. And if she said them aloud, the spell would break and she’d crumble. Just disintegrate into a pile of ash that even a phoenix couldn’t reanimate.

It didn’t matter if others said them. In fact, she’d heard them muttered often. Shouted even. But the words only held sway over her psyche if she believed them. And it took a lot for her to believe. So much, in fact, that she’d become invincible to the power of the words when said by anyone except herself. Because she was sure one thing in the world – her own mind. She knew it even when she claimed not to. Especially then, as those were the times she felt the words were close.

It’s a difficult thing for most people to outrun their own thoughts. But she’d found a way. She’d sleep. Sleep and go to the dream world she’d created where lucid dreaming afforded her every ability she lacked in reality. Every answer.

​Her dream self was much smarter than the waking self though, and that posed a problem.

It was easy to stay too long. To sleep too long. So she’d reluctantly stopped allowing that to happen, training her body to sleep only three or four hours at a time and waking up, so she couldn’t become too comfortable in her sleep and decide to stay.

It wasn’t an overreaction or ridiculous worry: it had happened before.